Hotline Miami and Developer Dennaton's Future

"Hotline Miami and its sequel are the epitome of pulse-pounding arcade action. Not only that, but the vague story with just enough clues to piece it together combined with a tantalizing 80s electronic soundtrack make a truly remarkable experience. These two top-down twin-stick shooter games are some of my favorites of the past decade in games. Jonatan Soderstrom and Dennis Wedin formed Dennaton Games in 2012 with the first title. With their help, Devolver Digital was put on the map as one of the biggest independent game publishers we’ve seen thus far in gaming history." -- PlayStation Enthusiast

In terms of the difficulty curve and general flow, the second game is much less of a straight line. There's a lot more highs and lows (it's less consistent and it's a lot longer). Overall, I preferred 2. it had more variety, increased violence, special abilities like dual weapons, a more insidious story, a better soundtrack, better art, etc. It was also way more challenging than 1 which I personally appreciated - it just felt like a natural progression in that regard.

However, the fact that there were just too many enemies off screen at times, it dictated your play-style too much (I was always more of a melee guy) and it could have done with a more succinct story are the issues that really held the second game back. At least for me anyway.